Tag Archives: texas politics

Do you ever just not have a point? And you’re all like, I can’t write, there’s no point. Sometimes we just need to arrive there really slowly, like my grandmother making her way to the top of an escalator. But you not writing isn’t gonna help anyone, idiot. Okay fine, I’ll prove it. Let’s just start somewhere.

The last couple of days I’ve been focused on the Texas abortion bill, uniquely named House Bill 2 or Senate Bill 5. That doesn’t sound very funny, you say, to which I’d reply, you’re kind of right. Except that you’re wrong and funny is everywhere. Even in really scummy times, like watching a bill pass that affects mostly women get passed by mostly men, there is comedy. Some funny things that happened:

The gray-haired tourist, complete with fanny pack taking pictures of the portrait of George W. Bush. She looked as if she half expected him to pop out of the picture, which I could totally see W doing on some sort of presidential Punk’d remake. There needs to be a presidential Punk’d.

The gavel debacle. Inside the house chambers at the Capitol, you were expected to follow proper decorum. This is really hard to do when a lady takes over the Chairman’s seat to call time by banging the gavel, and as her delicate little wrist pounds the wooden hammer the head of the thing comes flying off into the political arena where Representative Sylvester Turner D-Houston is breaking democracy down for the people. The chambers are in an uproar of unplanned comedy as the girl next to me is all like, “Did you get that? Oh. my. God. Tweet that now!”

“See! I told you this job would be fun!” -THAT guy

Thinking intently about gavels. The best part about this was that they had an extra gavel like right underneath the desk which made me wonder how many gavels they have and wear do you buy gavels. Is there a gavel store? A law-maker’s store? Are they customized Texas gavels, bigger than all the other states? These are the things I wonder about.

Original and replacement gavel.

Politicians making jokes. Rep. Turner understood the humor in the moment and decided to make a joke, “Oh no!” he said, “I’ve been so traumatized so badly we need to recess for two weeks and I may just need an ambulatory emergency center!” Granted, law makers aren’t the best joke makers, but he had a point by calling out the absurdity of the bill up for debate. (The bill requires all clinics that provide abortions to convert into ambulatory medical centers in one year which will force all but five clinics to shut down).

Watching this guy doodle. I spent some of the time trying to figure out what each Representative was doing at his desk. This guy was drawing, while others were online gambling and buying plane tickets. Good times.

“5 ways to stay busy during an intense floor debate”

The 16-year-old boy handing out fake Planned Parenthood pamphlets with false information — hilarious. Seriously, this boy was so gay he may have been sweating pink (I hope it all works out for him).

A point: We often have to laugh at ourselves, with each other and at each other so we don’t end up killing each other. The House abortion bill passed just like no one thought it wouldn’t. I’d rather laugh than cry most times, and either way you’re getting it out, right? So there’s my point, now go write something.

What do you do when you can’t write? Do you also think we should have a show called Presidentially Punk’d?